Lotto Blotto

I, like many Canadians have been playing the various lotteries for some time now. Whether it's the pool at work, the impulse buy when getting change at the store or the last minute "Hail Mary" ticket when I realize that the lottery's damn big and for a few bucks I'll roll the dice.

Over time, as I began to amass nothing but mostly loosing tickets, I began to keep an eye on just how much I was spending. Now I realize that playing the lottery is more about the entertainment than anything else. Afterall, for your $2 you're getting the chance to dream about "What if I was the lucky winner.......".

The actual odds of winning a jackpot on Lotto649 are astronomical (see below) but there are people that indeed win and some of them win HUGE!

So over time, and relying on my Googl'ing skills, I began to search for the stories of winners, if only so I could live vicariously through their fortune. Think of it as my own voyeuristic trip that would likely be the closest I ever became a multi-gazillionaire. It seems that the actual winners of lotteries are a private bunch cause I didn't find a single website by a jackpot winner, or at least one that was marginally believable. Maybe they're required to sign a non-disclosure document when picking up the million dollar cheques ?

What I did find online was a huge array of "Lottery Systems", books, wheels and methodologies that promised to either win you the jackpot of your dreams or at the very least improve your chances. Now I'm not a mathematician but I am fairly sure I have a firm grasp of the concept of randomness......but.....I was willing to listen...up to a point. Personally, I felt that if any of these systems/schemes could in fact improve your chances, the authors wouldn't be too inclined to share their secrets with the rest of us (too busy jet setting and sipping bubbly). But, who knows.....there actually might be a few "Rain Man" intuitive lottery masters who have an altruistic streak and are willing to share their knowledge with us afterall (wanna bet on that one ?)

So here I am, handy with Excel and with a few hours to kill & I decided I would look at the underlying statistics and trends of the game for myself. What follows is not a system for beating the odds (technically you can't in a random system) but instead, a look at the various HISTORICAL patterns that have cropped up over the years. I've also tossed in some simple & intuitive ideas but as always...Caveat Emptor !!

Why did I choose Lotto649 ? Simply put, it's the cheaper of the major National lotteries here in Canada and also, it's the longest running that I could obtain all the historic data from which the following stats and analysis is derived. So without further ado, let's dive in and see what we can interpret.

First off, we'll explore some fun and interesting Lotto649 Odds'n Facts. Here's your chance to get a quick dose of reality. Then we'll move along with some of the basic Historical Stats & Trends. This is where the websites I mentioned above would have you drinking the Kool-Aid and believing in discernible patterns from which predictions can be made.

Here are a few little facts about your odds of winning the Lotto649 specifically and the lottery in general.

• You have a better chance of being killed in a Terrorist Attack while travelling (1 in 650,000)
• You have a better chance of dying of a Flesh Eating Disease (1 in 1,000,000)
• You have a better chance of being killed by lightning (1 in 56,439)
• If you bought 50 Tickets a week, chances are you would win ONCE every 5,000 years
• You could cover every possible combination of numbers and win, but it'd cost you $27,967,632
• The number 13 is rarely drawn in the month of April
• In Canada, winners do NOT pay Income Tax on the winnings, only on the interest earned on the principal in subsequent years
• If your numbers start with 24 or higher, your chances of winning the jackpot are extremely slim. The same goes for any numbers that end in 26 or less
• Approximately 72-74% of adult Canadians or more than 16 million people play the lotteries. Of this number, around 50% buy Quick Picks chosen by the lotteries' computers
• Per adult population, Nova Scotians gamble the most, followed by Saskatchewans
• The highest frequently drawn number, 31, appears the most in the 4th position
• The Best 2 Numbers, 20 with 43, also show up quite frequently in the Overall Best 3 Numbers and seem to be drawn more with 1st position numbers, 9 and 2
• Since the beginning of Lotto 6/49, 6 out of 10 draws have had at least one repeating number from the immediate previous draw
• At least one Prime Number has been drawn in 90% of all draws
• The most popular drawn combination of Odd and Even numbers has been 3 Odd and 3 Even

First Number

• Starting your number selection is important
• If you start your numbers with a 1, then you have 13,983,816 combinations to choose from.
• If you start your numbers with a 2, then you have 12,271,512 combinations to choose from, BUT you are lessening your ability to win by 1,712,304 (13,983,816 - 12,271,512) combinations
• Starting your numbers with a 3, you have 10,737,573 combinations to choose from. However you have now reduced your ability to win by 3,246,243 (13,983,816 - 12,271,512) combinations
• For numbers starting with a 4, there are 9,366,819 combinations to choose from and your ability to win has now been dropped by 4,616,997 (13,983,816 - 9,366,819) combinations. That's a whopping 33 percent or 1 in every 3 draws that you are missing out on the Jackpot
• If you examine Position Frequency percentages you will see that the first three numbers (1, 2, 3) in the first position of Winning Numbers account for approximately 32 percent of all draws while the first four numbers (1, 2, 3, 4) account for approximately 42 percent of all draws
So the higher the number you start with, the lower the opportunity you have of winning the Jackpot

Prizes and chance of winning (source Wikipedia)

Number of Matches	Win	Probability of Winning on a $2 play
6/6	Share of 80.5% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 13,983,816
5/6 + Bonus	Share of 5.75% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 2,330,636
5/6	Share of 4.75% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 55,492
4/6	Share of 9% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 1,033
3/6	$10 prize	1 in 56.7
2/6 + Bonus	$5 prize	1 in 81.2
-	Any prize	1 in 32.3

If a jackpot of $30 million or higher is not won, the following prize structure applies to all subsequent draws until the jackpot has been won. This does not apply to bonus jackpots.

Number of Matches	Win	Probability of Winning on a $2 play
6/6	Share of 40% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 13,983,816
5/6 + Bonus	Share of 16% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 2,330,636
5/6	Share of 15% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 55,492
4/6	Share of 29% of the Pool's Fund	1 in 1,033
3/6	$10 prize	1 in 56.7
2/6 + Bonus	$5 prize	1 in 81.2
-	Any prize	1 in 32.3

Draws are held weekly on Wednesday and Saturday, executed with a Ryo-Catteau Tulipe ball machine by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation.
What we spend on gambling, by income group

After-tax income	Average expenditure	Expenditure as percentage of total income
All Canadians	$549	0.8
Less than $20,000	$491	3.6
$20,000 to $39,999	$539	1.8
$40,000 to $59,999	$527	1.1
$60,000 to $79,999	$555	0.8
$80,000 and over	$618	0.5

Source: Statistics Canada Survey of Household Spending

Below are a few Historical Statistics that illustrate various trends over time with Lotto649. While there is no doubt that there are indeed trends over time, even if you filtered your own number selections to fall within the ranges specified within these trends, you're still playing a RANDOM game.

(Clicking on the photos will enlarge them in your browser)